I'm a little out of the loop, do you mind giving details, fellow Sumire best girl user?
Ok basically what happened was this:
-bloodstained gets a worldwide release date.
-two weeks later Japanese backers get the news the game is delayed indefinitely with little explanation except for a vague explantation on their being logistics issues
- game comes out everywhere else in the world on time while Japanese gamers are left out of the loop for months. Unless they went to Akihabara to buy a copy or ordered online from the west. All backers did get copies of the game on steam as an apology for free, but most backers couldn’t play the game as they didn’t have PCs to play it on. Of course this being Japan which is still more console focused
- eventually word comes that they didn’t do all the cero paperwork for the rating and that there were issues with the publisher they had chosen. A new company publishing games in Japan from Hong Kong that no one had heard of and had one of the worst logos ever making some people nervous.
- game finally was annouced for an October release date giving fans hope that the game would finally be in our hands. We were also promised a special extra thing, not mentioned, to make up for the half year wait.
- before the game was released it was revealed that again due to issues backers would not receive their games on release date and that they weren’t sure when they would release the game to backers.
- this infuriated backers here quite a lot. Even more so as there was a launch event in Akihabara with Iga signing copies of the game. Backers planed to go to the event to complain but then found out the store decided to do the event using a lottery system that was available online, not really advertised and was already all booked up. The few backers that were able to go had to sign up for a empty box to get signed as their games had not arrived yet. Iga gave an apology but it was the smallest apology I’ve seen for a video game controversy here in quite a while.
- as promised we received a extra gift for our waiting. A digital copy of the game for the system they chose. This wasn’t the extra special gift people had in mind but they were willing to accept it. Only one problem, all of the playstation codes didn’t work! You could purchase the game on the store but all the codes that were sent out were useless for weeks for some unknown reason.
- eventually in November we recieved our physical games. Ironically just after that the digital codes started working.
throughout that time all attempts to get straight answers from Iga, the developers, the publishers, anybody involved with the game was a frustrating mess with most of our messages ignored or just given a short “we’re sorry.”
So yeah, a complete mess. When compared to say, Shenmue 3, we got our games before release date. Which was awesome. But yeah, the whole experience was a massive bit of frustration that year, and made me sour on everything regarding the game and those that made it. Had they simply been more upfront with us and told us all the reasons why things had gone so badly we would’ve been more understanding. But sadly we were treated like crap.
